In October 2024, healthcare company Johnson & Johnson expanded its MedTech robotics campus at the Stadium Tech Center in Santa Clara, California.
After Johnson & Johnson completed extensive tenant improvements and moved into the building, JLL Property Management engaged Westcoast Roofing Consultants to evaluate the condition of the roof system and put the project out to bid. Thanks to Bigham Taylor’s reputation and experience, the company was selected as the roofing contractor.
The BT team confronted several challenges on the Great America Parkway project, starting with accessing the roof. “The logistics and site access on this project were difficult,” says BT Project Manager Jesse Reed. “There’s no direct access to the building because it’s surrounded by other buildings. The closest our truck could get was about 100 feet away.” As a workaround, the team installed a stair tower that served two purposes: accessing the roof and transporting debris to the ground.
To minimize noise disruptions to Johnson & Johnson employees during business hours, the gravel surface of the existing built-up roof system was cleared on Saturdays. About 15 BT crew members removed the rock by hand, sending the material through an enclosed debris chute to the ground for disposal. JLL requested to repurpose the rock as a drainage conduit to guide excess stormwater away from the rear of the building toward storm drains and permeable areas. The BT team worked quickly and efficiently to execute that idea.
After about 25% of the gravel surface was removed on the first Saturday of the 6-week project, the BT crew began delivering new materials to the roof. This was no easy task, however. Given the distance between the building and the staging area, BT rented a 69-ton hydraulic crane with a 100-foot lifting radius. “There was a lot of complexity with the crane to make sure everything was set up correctly,” says Jesse. “We were lifting materials from the back of a truck and swinging it all the way over to the roof of the building. It was a challenge, but once we loaded the materials onto the roof, we removed the rest of the gravel over the following three Saturdays.”
Rock removal and transport via a trash chute is messy work, but the BT team kept the dust under control by using vacuums and blowers, installing carbon filters in the HVAC units on gravel removal days (and changing them when finished), and hosing down the rock pile on the ground.
Once the roof was clean, the BT crew installed a high-density cover board over the existing roof membrane and an Elevate 115-mil. fleece-backed, single-ply membrane over the cover board. The foam adhesive was applied in a tight ribbon pattern, spaced four inches on center, for maximum coverage and long-term durability to resist wind uplift. “We did the adhesion work on Saturdays as well to avoid disturbing the tenants with the strong fumes,” Jesse says. Another Saturday task was to refresh the 700-square-foot outdoor patio with urethane coating.
Superintendent Rod Freitas says that meeting client needs and dealing with the unexpected is the BT way. “We made sure not to make noise during the tenant’s business hours, and we kept the roof immaculately clean to minimize dust,” he says. “We also modified the support legs of the rooftop stairs, catwalk system, and mechanical well service platforms to accommodate the increased roof height after installing the insulation.”
Excellent planning, good communication with JLL, and careful attention to detail were the keys to a successful project. “JLL is a solid, class-A project management team and was very involved,” says Jesse. Weekly meetings between BT and JLL kept things running smoothly and ahead of schedule. “The roofing team did an excellent job managing the whole project from end to end, aligning expectations, and delivering on promises made.”
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